


The darkest blue

by Blanquette



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artists, Awkwardness, Bittersweet, Blow Jobs, Desire, Friendship, Love, M/M, One Shot, Painting, Past, Pining, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 14:32:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Hyunwoo sees his face in a painting, at the gallery that employs him. The artist isn't as much of a stranger as he first thinks.





	The darkest blue

**Author's Note:**

> I took [this prompt](https://twitter.com/ratedtopki/status/1097836789874741248) from [@ratedtopki](https://twitter.com/ratedtopki/), it probably deserved better I'm sorry.
> 
> It's been a very long time I haven't written anything so that's my way of getting back into it. If it feels like a big fucking mess it's because it is.  
> I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless!!

**1.**

It’s a portrait in majesty. Something regal, in the way the head is carried, body draped in a tunic sewn of gold. Broad strokes lending power to the slope of the shoulders and this is someone back from war, it seems; a conqueror. But there is something wistful in the black of the eyes, a sadness, in the downturned curve of the mouth and maybe what was found isn’t worth what was lost. It’s a beautiful painting, striking in its profound melancholy and Hyunwoo stays staring longer that he should – longer than he’s allowed to. He stays and he stares at this face he knows well, because it is his own.

There’s movement on his right, a glance telling him what he needs to know. Hoseok, in an ill-fitted suit, hands in his pockets, looking ahead at the same piece and Hyunwoo wonders if it is the same thing that he sees, the same feeling that fills his being.

“You know the painter?”

“No.”

There’s a pause, Hoseok fidgeting, staring at the side of Hyunwoo’s face.

“But that’s you, though.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no ‘maybe’, that’s definitely you.”

“Maybe they just saw me around.”

“And that doesn’t freak you out.”

“It should?”

Hoseok laughs, bending at the waist to read the little insert fixed next to the painting.

“Do you know someone named Yoo?”

Hyunwoo shakes his head, eyes lost in the splashes of red and gold draping around strong shoulders and a narrow waist.

“It’s untitled.”

“It feels familiar.”

“Maybe cause you’re looking at your own face?”

“I mean, beyond that.”

“They’re not famous, though. The painter.”

A hum, Hyunwoo tilting his head, and it is familiar, it is, the broad downward strokes, the intensity of the colors, the sharpness of the details; it is familiar like something endlessly missed, and yet there is no remembering, no pinning down the feeling; Hyunwoo is left with a hollow behind his ribs, something slightly aching, a longing for days never lived.

“Don’t you find it sad?”

His voice is quiet, almost too much so, and Hoseok tilts his head, thoughtful, eyes strained on the painting in front of them. It’s enshrined in an old-fashioned frame, almost oddly out of place in their modern gallery of white light and metal. It seems they’re staring at something out of centuries past.

“Yeah, I do. I think it’s all this dark. The way it’s lighted.”

“Tenebrism.”

“What?”

“The style, it’s tenebrism. It started in the 17th century.”

“How do you know that?”

“I used to study art.”

“Seriously?”

Hyunwoo’s gaze pulls away from the painting to fall on Hoseok and he could be a painting himself, he thinks; the shiny black of his hair, the paleness of his skin. A chiaroscuro all of his own.

“Yeah. But I wasn’t good enough. I dropped out when I started failing.”

“It doesn’t sound like you.”

Hyunwoo smiles, something of a ghost kissing his full lips; it doesn’t sound like him and yet it is, and sometimes he sits and wonders what would have happened, if he had held on, if circumstances had been different. If he had known how to keep going. And he remembers, then, sitting at an easel and hating what he put there, hating the dull colors and the awkward strokes, the sketches too like himself he’d slather with turpentine as soon as they were finished.

He remembers, too, sitting at the back of the class and watching, watching others bring life out of an empty white. He remembers faded pink hair and the soft slope of a nose, sharp eyes staring back with a challenge, a smile dancing on full lips; and he remembers the burning sensation of shyness, shyness and embarrassment, longing, too, and the desperate need to conceal.

“Hoseok?”

“Yeah?”

“The painter, what did you say their name was?”

“Yoo.”

Hyunwoo nods, vines growing in his lungs. It can’t be, he thinks, and yet. Yet his own eyes are staring back at him from a sea of darkness and he knows their sorrow. He knows, too, the way the brush fell on the canvas, and he knows the fingers that held it; he had once wished to feel them on his skin.

**2.**

The painting sells. There’s a round, red sticker next to the rectangle bearing the painter’s name and Hyunwoo knows what it means. It’s sold, and he’s not sure how he feels about having his own face displayed in a stranger’s collection.

It’s a testament to the true invisibility of security guards that no one but Hoseok noticed. Noticed that it was him, in the painting, and Hyunwoo sits on the cold metal chair at the entrance of the room where it hangs. He understands, now; a fallen king, and he wonders if that’s what he is. A fallen king, armies laying in blood at his feet and maybe it could have been different, if he had held on, if he had made the right decisions, if he had had some courage. Maybe he wouldn’t be sitting here, days fleeting by, unlived and unfelt.

“Dude, do you even blink?”

Hoseok’s amused voice brings him back and when Hyunwoo looks up the man is smiling, still in his ill-fitted suit, still looking carved out of marble.

“What?”

“You look lost in thoughts.”

“Sorry. It’s just not that riveting, you know.”

“Tell me about it.”

Hoseok shrugs, leaning against the wall next to Hyunwoo and they fall silent, watching people fleet in and out of the gallery; people with a life of their own, people with hopes and dreams, and Hyunwoo wonders if any of them lost their private war, too.

“I have a favor to ask.”

Hoseok is looking down at him with that hopeful look he has sometimes and Hyunwoo already knows that whatever he asks, he will do it.

“What is it?”

“I’m supposed to have the evening shift tomorrow, you know, for the vernissage?”

“You want to switch.”

“Please? I got a date.”

“With a real person, or with your neighbor’s cats?”

“What if it’s both?”

Hyunwoo laughs, and of course he says yes; there’s things you just can’t refuse. The smile Hoseok gives him is worth it, and they fall silent again, two shadows against a wall and if he tries hard enough maybe Hyunwoo could vanish into dust.

**3.**

Hyunwoo’s here when they hang the new paintings. He knows every color, every stroke; he knows the feelings scattered there and once again he stops before the portrait, looking at this noble version of himself and it feels too real, too true. A strange mirror showing the loss nesting inside himself and it grows uncomfortable, a weight pushing against his ribs.

And so he retreats, bowing and smiling as the room fills although no one really pays attention, too absorbed in conversation, in themselves, in the art adorning the walls. Hyunwoo hides, against a wall behind a pillar, he hides and he observes and he wonders, what all those people think, when they stare at him, hanged up there on the wall, when they spared barely a glance at the real thing. 

And then, he sees him. Yoo, the artist, or Kihyun, the classmate with pink hair he was too shy to approach, always too shy, until it was too late. It’s him alright, a little older, a little sharper, too, talking with a confidence he didn’t use to have. The hair is shorter now, of a sensible color; but the eyes are the same, the eyes Hyunwoo used to draw in sketchbooks until them, too, he destroyed.

Kihyun’s that much farther away, running ahead as Hyunwoo stayed in the same place. And so Hyunwoo shrinks behind his pillar, a buried feeling stirring in his belly, familiar like an old friend. It should have disappeared, with the paintings and the brushes and the old dreams he threw away and yet, yet it is still here, returning with each pounding heartbeats. A big man in a tired suit who doesn’t know what to do with himself, hiding like he always did, and it would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Hyunwoo still smiles, though, shaking his head, looking down at his big hands, at the new dress shoes he bought, at the one ring Hoseok gifted him once that he had worn even since. It’s not much, but it’s him, and it should be fine, it should be enough. He knows that it’s not, though, that he’s part of the mass of the invisibles, of the wasted, and he wishes he could take up less space, wishes he could fold on himself and disappear for a little while; disappear before he is seen, before he is judged. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment in the sharp eyes.

But one cannot hide forever and Hyunwoo sighs, lifting his head. He has a job to do, even if it isn’t much, and he will do it well, even if it will go unnoticed. He smooths his suit, pulling on the bottom edges of his jacket, adjusting his tie. Small gestures and yet he feels more assured as he steps out, into the noise and the light and the crowd. It’s easy, to hide in plain sight.

Kihyun only sees him when the light outside has dimmed, pulling a hush over the remaining guests. Hyunwoo smiles. Kihyun doesn’t.

**4.**

It’s like a duel, Hyunwoo thinks, a staring contest with nothing to win. Hyunwoo’s at the door, seeing off the leaving guests, feeling Kihyun’s heavy gaze burning on his face. The man stands at the far end of the gallery, near a painting Hyunwoo recognizes as sublime, because as much as he had wished to forget all this knowledge it’s still hard-wired into him. Kihyun stares, and the painted mountain behind the man looms over him like a bad omen. So Hyunwoo focuses on his work, hoping that the next time he’ll look up, the man standing at the end of the gallery will have faded like a ghost. It takes a while, before everyone is gone; until only the staff remains, the staff and the painter, still standing, still staring. And so Hyunwoo understands that the first step is his to take.

Kihyun watches him approach with darting eyes and it seems that he is shrinking with each step that Hyunwoo takes. It’s almost funny, the way they both don’t want this to happen, and yet it is. There’s some power in taking the lead and Hyunwoo doesn’t feel half as worried as he had a moment ago, as he finally reaches the painter, who stares with wide eyes as if waiting for a cleaver to fall.

“Hey, it’s… been a while.”

Kihyun stays silent, glaring, looking angry and Hyunwoo shuffles awkwardly, a small smile dancing on his lips.

“If you’d rather keep on staring at me I can go back to the door.”

It’s when he starts turning back that Kihyun finally reacts, with an aborted gesture in his direction and half mumbled words.

“You work here.”

“Yes.”

“As what?”

“As a security guard.”

“I’m. I’m a painter.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Hyunwoo kind of wants to laugh. It’s like he’s not really there, watching the interaction unfold from somewhere near the ceiling. And it’s funny, it is, two people awkwardly standing near each other, the closest they ever have, really, neither knowing what to do with themselves. What to say. It’s sort of liberating, and so the smile blooms on his lips as he takes a step forward.

“The painting.”

“Which one?”

“You know the one.”

“No I don’t.”

Hyunwoo laughs, then, something bright that has Kihyun looking at him, brows furrowed.

“You’re really going to make me spell it out?”

“That would be something new.”

There’s a sudden challenge in Kihyun’s eyes, something Hyunwoo remembers seeing in flashes, half hidden behind an easel, something daring him to come forward, to tell his truth; yet he never did. Kihyun must know, then, must have always known, and Hyunwoo’s smile freezes on his face.

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

Kihyun tilts his head, dark strands falling into his eyes and Hyunwoo has the urge to reach out and tuck them away. He doesn’t, standing very still under Kihyun’s burning gaze.

“You didn’t change.”

“You did.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of Kihyun’s lips, something playful that opens a whole new realm of worry in Hyunwoo’s tired mind.

“Yeah? In a good way?”

There’s something in Kihyun’s eyes Hyunwoo pretends not to see as he nods and the smile grows, grows into something vaguely predatory. Hyunwoo drops his eyes, riveting his gaze to the tip of his dress shoes and he remembers the day he went to buy them, it was too warm outside and the seller had been cold under his smile, looking pointedly at the frayed edges of Hyunwoo’s jacket. So he had jammed his big hands into his pockets, dropped his shoulders, tried to fold himself into something more sensible and it was too warm but everything was cold, way too cold, and he had hoped to melt under the sun, a puddle of ice on the steaming pavement.

When Hyunwoo looks up he locks eyes with Kihyun and there’s something there, something magnetic pulling at him, a warmth pooling in the pit of his belly, a dormant desire stirring, still there after all these years. Kihyun’s dark eyes see all, they must, and Hyunwoo wishes the had stayed near the door.

“Come.”

“What?”

Kihyun is already turning, waving an impatient hand over his shoulder and Hyunwoo wonders if he got used to people doing whatever he tells them to. Yet Hyunwoo knows that he probably would, too, that Kihyun just has to look at him with that light in his eyes and he’d be on his knees if he wants him to. And so he follows, to the back of the gallery, passed the staff break room and their neat lockers, passed the service door to the one bathroom no one ever uses because it’s too far, too inconvenient, and Kihyun pushes him inside before locking the door behind them.

Hyunwoo looks to the lonely sink on his right, to the one stall and the strikingly white urinal, to the tiling under his shoes. Anywhere but at Kihyun, Kihyun who’s standing there motionless, lying against the door, head tilted, narrowed eyes racking over Hyunwoo, who finally finds his voice after a century.

“What are we doing here?”

That smile again, something knowing in the sharp face, and then, then Kihyun is the one to drop to his knees.

“What– What are you doing?”

Slender fingers still on Hyunwoo’s belt and Kihyun looks up, gaze burning between strands of dark hair as his tongue darts to wet his lips.

“Tell me you don’t want it.”

Hyunwoo opens his mouth but nothing comes out, warmth pooling in his belly and Kihyun waits the span of two heartbeats before working the clasp of his belt and he takes his time, then, unbuttoning the tired pants, easing them down past soft hips he grazes with fingernails, and his hands are searing cold on the burning skin of Hyunwoo’s thighs.

Hyunwoo swallows hard, words on his lips he doesn’t let spill lest they break the trance they both seem under. When he looks down he’s already half hard, Kihyun staring at the bulge in his boxers with parted lips before easing a hand inside, Hyunwoo swallowing a gasp as deft fingers circle his cock, yet tentative; Kihyun has closed his eyes and Hyunwoo stares, stares until he has to touch and he lifts a hand, burying stiff fingers in Kihyun’s dark hair, tugging softly as Kihyun tilts his head back, eyes opening a slit, a gasp escaping his mouth and Hyunwoo lets his hand slip to his face, traces the slope of his nose and the ridges of his cheekbones before he finds the parted lips and he dips two fingers inside, greeted by a soft tongue before Kihyun starts sucking, echoing the rhythm of his hand on Hyunwoo’s cock. This time Hyunwoo moans aloud, Kihyun’s eyes snapping open as he smiles around the fingers in his mouth.

And Hyunwoo watches as Kihyun snakes a hand against his own chest, down, down until he has it disappear in his pants and he starts fisting himself, almost languidly; Hyunwoo’s cock throbs under Kihyun’s fingers and time seems to rush, then, Kihyun spitting out Hyunwoo’s fingers, easing his boxers down his thighs. He slides his hand to the base of Hyunwoo’s cock as he teases the tip with his tongue and a chocked whimper escapes Hyunwoo’s throat. He sees Kihyun smirks, sees him part his lips, sees him swallow yet even more, slick heat overwhelming as a wet tongue licks the underside of his cock and he shudders, shudder still as Kihyun blows him harder, lips spread and cheeks hollowing. Hyunwoo tugs on Kihyun’s hair, the dark eyes snapping open as Kihyun moans around the cock in his mouth and Hyunwoo stares, Kihyun’s gaze unwavering, he stares at his eyes and the deep want pooling in them, want and something else, too, something of loss and regret and a new kind of despair.

And then, Hyunwoo feels it. The muscles of his belly tighten, a spasm going through him and Kihyun lets go of himself to grip Hyunwoo’s thighs, blunt fingernails digging into his skin as he comes, comes deep in Kihyun’s throat and Hyunwoo feels him swallow, tongue lapping, a low moan in his throat. 

There’s a beat of silence, something suspended as Kihyun rocks back on his haunches and they both stare at each other, both none too sure of what just happened, Hyunwoo’s throat dry, his palms sticky.

“Wha–”

“I need to go.”

“What?”

Kihyun rises to his feet in a flash, and he’s gone before Hyunwoo can make any attempt at holding him back. He watches as the door swings close, and the soft sound it makes feels too final, something dying that didn’t have the chance to be.

**5.**

The eyes stay with him. Dark eyes, burning at the back of his mind. It’s them that he sees when he looks at the paintings hanging on the bleak walls of the gallery. It’s them that he thinks of when he catches his reflection in the mirror of his cramped bathroom, and it’s the quiet questions he saw there that he wants to answer. Only it’s the wrong voice talking to him; the wrong voice, the wrong words, the wrong eyes staring when he looks back.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, sorry. What were you saying?”

Hoseok frowns, something out of place on his soft face and Hyunwoo tries out a smile so smooth it out. It’s the wrong one.

“Okay, what the hell happened to you? You’ve been spacing out even more than usual.”

“It’s nothing, it’s just…”

A sigh. Nervous fingers raking through disheveled hair. Hyunwoo stares at Hoseok and he looks open and earnest, and so, the words find their way.

“I actually knew the painter, you know. The one who drew my portrait.”

Hoseok straightens, inching away from the wall he was leaning against. It’s a slow day, the gallery almost empty except for a young couple staying too long in front of each paintings. The boy talks with too much hands gestures, trying to impress a date who’s already staring at him more than she stares at the art.

“He was a guy from art school.”

“And he remembered you this well from all this time?”

“I guess so.”

“Damn. How long did he spend staring at you?”

Hyunwoo parts his lips in an answer that never comes. He hadn’t thought of it that way. The one staring had always been him. The one staring, the one longing, the one hoping for something that never was. His eyes find the couple again, the girl laughing and something like fondness softening the features of the kid next to her. She doesn’t see it, doesn’t see him looking at her, instead pointing at something in the painting. Hyunwoo wonders what he missed, too, all those years ago, staring at his failings, at his blank easel and the dread he painted over it.

“I need to talk to him.”

“Yeah, probably.”

There’s something careful, almost hesitant in Hoseok’s face, in his voice, and Hyunwoo stares back at him with an eyebrow raised.

“What is it?”

“Just… Did something happen between you two? At that time.”

Hyunwoo smiles, shaking his head; a sad, tight smile that pulls at his lips.

“No, nothing happened. I think that’s the whole issue, really. Something probably should have.”

Hoseok nods as if he had expected such an answer, reaching his arms above his head to stretch with a grimace, and his white shirt bundles over his stomach when he lets them fall.

“This feels like fate, then.”

“You believe in fate?”

Hoseok shrugs, noticing the state of his shirt and doing his best to tuck it back into his dress pants.

“I don’t know. I’d like to. Some things remaining unfinished that shouldn’t, and if we let it, a current that brings them where they should have already fallen into place. I think it’s a comforting idea.”

Hyunwoo tilts his head, his eyes falling back on the young couple. They sat on a bench in front of the biggest of Kihyun’s painting. Their bodies lean into each other, hands clasped in between, and they watch the frozen tempest roaring in front of them, paralyzed flashes of light forever ripping apart black clouds and the sea underneath, rearing like a monster, a beast of ink to swallow the world. It’s a tempest he knows well, one that burst within his mind once, and when it had run its course, there was nothing but desolation.

“Comforting? Wouldn’t you rather make your own path?”

Hoseok smiles, embracing the gallery with a gesture of his arm before it falls limply at his side.

“If this is where it gets me, not really.”

Hyunwoo snorts, catching himself before he chips at the affected silence blanketed over them.

“I guess you have a point there.”

“What would you tell him, if you saw him again?”

Hyunwoo chews on his lower lip; the boy let his head fall on the girl’s shoulder and he closed his eyes. She’s speaking, in a soft voice that doesn’t reach them, and the boy listens, eyes closed and peaceful.

“That I’m sorry, I guess. That I wished things had been different but that it was too hard, and I was too scared. What else is there to say?”

“Do you still like him? Cause you did, right? I’m not reading too much into this whole conversation?”

Hyunwoo smiles, shaking his head. The couple on the bench rises slowly, hand in hand, trailing towards the exit. The girl looks behind her one last time, at the tempest raging on the wall, at the empty gallery. At Hyunwoo, leaning against his wall, and she smiles. Hyunwoo smiles back.

“You’re not. I don’t know if I still like him. I like the idea of him. I don’t know what kind of person he turned into.”

He does know, though. Someone brash and intense, someone beautiful, someone who pushed him against a wall and let his body lead, someone he wants to touch and taste and someone that left a hole in his side he was never able to fill; someone made of regrets and want, someone spilling paint on blank canvas, pulling images from the earth itself, someone deep, someone deep, someone he knows he could drown in.

“It sounds like you want to know, though.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Hoseok nods, leaning back against the wall next to Hyunwoo, the latter glad for his presence, for the solidity of his being.

“His contacts are on the back of the exhibit’s catalogue. He doesn’t use an agency.”

Hyunwoo turns his head, slowly, and Hoseok’s smile pulls at him like a wave. 

**6.**

That night when Hyunwoo gets home, he sits at the little desk pushed in the corner of his room, and stares at the bottom drawer. It’s as if the thing stared back, daring him to open it, to pull out what he knows still lays inside. The tips of his fingers feel electric as he reaches out, touches the old, cheap wood, and pulls. He should have locked the drawer, he thinks, as he stares at the contents. He shouldn’t have made it so easy.

An old sketchbook, a half-used eraser, a pencil case and charcoals haphazardly thrown against the dark wood. The last relics of his lost ambitions. He stares longer than he means to, hands heavy as he takes the sketchbook out of the drawer. It’s almost empty, studies in black and white of perspectives, a page full of hands, a quick portrait he recognizes as his mother, a cat laying on a windowsill, a still life, the sea, a boy sitting at an easel. Hyunwoo stares at the small sketch, almost lost in the middle of the page, at the soft slope of the shoulders, the light hair, the hand hovering near the blank easel, about to draw the first line.

Hyunwoo touches the drawing with light fingers and for the first time, he feels something other than bitterness and resentment, towards the person who put it there, the person he was and isn’t anymore. A warm melancholy settles over him and he thinks back, thinks back to this boy he was, hunched over the sketchbook, charcoals smeared on his fingers, tying to catch the fleeting image of someone he loved and could never tell.

“I’m sorry”, he says. “I know it was hard for you too.”

And so he picks one of the charcoal pencils lying in the drawer he pushes close with his foot, and touches it to the rough paper. Awkward lines at first, but the automatisms come back quick, never forgotten as much as he had wanted to. Eyes take shape, dark, intense eyes staring back at him from the sketchbook. Eyes and a face, soon, a face he knows well despite it losing the roundness of youth, a face of sharp lines and soft lips, a face he loved, and loves still, maybe, and he should have kissed him, he should have kissed him.

Hyunwoo leans back against his chair, charcoal dust on his fingertips. He feels lighter, lighter than he has in weeks, and he remembers how this used to be something he loved, something he needed; and how had it become such a burden? He had let the charcoal seep into his mind until it was as black as his fingers and things had lost their taste, slowly, greying days flowing by, a current he couldn’t follow. Things had slipped from him. Things and people, inexorably, flowing down the river.

Hyunwoo wipes his fingers on his pants, a gesture he’ll regret later, and reaches out to the cellphone resting near the sketchbook. He finds the number he’s looking for, a number he picked off the glossy back of an exhibit’s catalogue, Hoseok’s excited stare on his fingers as he entered it in his contact list. The line rings once, twice, until it clicks and an irritated voice answers.

“This is Yoo Kihyun’s work phone. This better be important, you’re not supposed to call this late.”

“Hey, sorry. It’s me. Hyunwoo, I mean. Son Hyunwoo.”

There’s a silence on the other end. And then the voice speaks again, small and placated, all traces of irritation gone.

“Where are you?”

**7.**

Hyunwoo sees him before the other does. He’s standing in the washed-out glow of the store’s neon, cuffing his shoes on the sidewalk as he waits. Hyunwoo stops, staring, heart hammering against his ribs. Kihyun racks a hand in his hair, lifting his head to the night sky and if a veil of artificial lights wasn’t pulled in between him and the universe, he could see the stars hanging overhead, the moon shining, far and beautiful in their indifference. But there is nothing to see and so his eyes fall back to the earth, to Hyunwoo, standing in the shadows a few meters away from him. He raises his voice then, a posturing smile on his lips.

“You’re just gonna stand there and watch?”

“No, sorry. I just. Wasn’t sure?”

“It’s fine. I don’t really know what I’m doing there, if that’s any comfort.”

“It kind of is.”

They grin at each other and it’s genuine, something that eats at the awkwardness between them, and Hyunwoo takes the few steps that separates him from Kihyun. He looks rather disheveled, and it’s a good look on him, something more honest than his crisp put-togetherness at the gallery. He’s wearing glasses, and that makes him less intimidating, less guarded, the intensity of his stare somehow dimmed.

“Do you want to have something? I’m offering.”

“I sure hope so.”

They step inside the convenience store, the part-timer at the counter barely lifting her eyes from her cellphone, and she rings their beers and snacks with a tired smile.

“You still eat _kkokkalcorn_?”

Kihyun looks up from disemboweling the corn chips package to stare at Hyunwoo, his fingers slowly retreating from the crumpled bag.

“No. As you can see.”

Hyunwoo smiles, some uneasiness sipping back into him. It doesn’t last, Kihyun opening both their canned beers, dragging his blue plastic chair closer so they can cheer. They’re sitting outside the convenience store, at one of the round tables lugged there, amongst butts of cigarettes and forgotten bottles of soju.

“So you live around here?”

Hyunwoo nods, bringing his can to his lips.

“Cool. I don’t.”

“I figured, when you told me you had to take the subway.”

“I forgot you were a genius.”

“Yeah, sometimes I forget myself.”

Kihyun takes a large swig, leaning back into his chair as he swallows. The light of the store paints strange shadows on his skin and Hyunwoo stares, more than he means to, hiding in his beer when Kihyun narrows his eyes.

“So, are we gonna talk about it?”

“About what?”

“About how I sucked your dick in a dingy bathroom.”

Hyunwoo chokes on his beer, coughs it out as best he can, Kihyun politely waiting the end of his fit.

“It wasn’t– it wasn’t dingy.”

“That’s what you want to talk about?”

“No, I just. This is weird. We never really talked.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Kihyun leans forward, picks a corn chip and proceeds to ground it into dust instead of eating it. Hyunwoo watches his fingers work, keeps staring at them even when Kihyun raises his voice.

“I thought about you a lot, back then. Even after you left. Especially after you left.”

Hyunwoo says nothing, listening intently. Kihyun’s voice grows quiet, the prickly playfulness edged out of his tone by something more sincere. Something like truth. He doesn’t look at Hyunwoo, bringing the chip crumbs towards the edge of the table with his pinky finger.

“You just stayed in my mind. Like a big what-if. And I missed you. I missed you looking at me.”

“I liked you. I liked you a lot.”

Kihyun looks up at that, still hunched over the table, hand poised on the edge.

“Yeah? And what about now?”

Hyunwoo tilts his head, considering. The soft hair falling over dark eyes, the parted lips, the expectant stare. There’s a magnetic pull in Hyunwoo’s chest, something warm and wanting, something wishing to touch and explore; and there’s something yet more vulnerable that wants to break open, that wants the man seated in the blue chair to sink his fingers into the dark knots pulling everything too tight, and unravel, bit by bit, what lays there.

“I feel like I know you, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because I watched you so much. Maybe it’s because I stared at your paintings for hours. Maybe that told me something about you. But maybe everything is a lie and I just like the idea of you.”

“ _I dream my painting and I paint my dream._ It’s not a lie.”

“You dream of tempests and sad kings?”

Kihyun smiles, his pinky finger finally pushing the crumbs over the table’s edge.

“Maybe. Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not. I’m trying to know you.”

“Like, biblically?”

“I’m not going to laugh at that.”

“It was sort of funny, though.”

There’s a tiny smile on Kihyun’s lips, mischievous, and Hyunwoo has the urge to kiss it away. He doesn’t. He stays sagely on his side of the table and takes one more swig of his beer. The can is almost empty.

“Why did you do that? In the bathroom. Not that I’m complaining.”

Kihyun shrugs, picking up another corn chip. He eats it, this time.

“I felt like it was overdue. I just wanted to. I saw you and my brain left town. I don’t know, really. There’s many reasons. You have a nice cock; I didn’t know that. See, we are getting to know each other.”

This time, Hyunwoo laughs, and he catches the glim of delight in Kihyun’s eyes. That’s what decides him, maybe. Kihyun wanting to make him laugh. Nothing bad can come of that.

“Okay, alright. I don’t know about tomorrow, but right now, I like you.”

“That’s enough.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, then.”

Hyunwoo stands up, holding his hand out. Kihyun takes it and his hand is smaller than Hyunwoo remembers, fingers slotting with his, applying a light pressure to the back of his hand. Hyunwoo doesn’t wait until they make it back to his apartment. He pulls Kihyun into an empty side street, cradles his face between his hands, and kisses him. Kihyun is both soft and hard under him, light and dark, the dust of the charcoal on the white of the page. Hyunwoo’s hands finds Kihyun’s hair, his waist, the warm skin under his shirt and Hyunwoo feels it, then, something falling into place.

**8.**

“It’s a river.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been talking to Hoseok, haven’t you?”

“He has interesting ideas about fate.”

Hyunwoo snorts, shaking his head. In the middle of Kihyun’s atelier there’s a large easel, broad strokes of green, blue and grey mixing into each other. Something dark, too, almost black, slithering there. Kihyun is shirtless and the same shades are dotting his arms, his now too-long hair pinned back with colorful pins. The soft light of the late afternoon filters through the half-shut blinds and he looks brand new, standing there in the middle of the wide room under the roofs. If Hyunwoo were to touch him maybe he’d fade away like an afternoon dream; but when Hyunwoo brushes a finger to his arm, up, up to his shoulder and over his collarbones Kihyun just shudders, dark eyes finding Hyunwoo’s own, and the kiss he gives him is both soft and hungry.

Behind them, on the far wall, Kihyun pinned sketches in charcoal, portraits and scenery almost sublime in their delicacy; yet shadows still inhabits them, shadows speaking to the darker corners of the mind, to the weird and the complicated and the fearful. Kihyun loves them, though, loves the hand that drew them and he tries to unravel the strands he finds tangled behind the brown eyes, tries to say, _whatever hardened you all those years ago wasn’t your fault_ and maybe it will be better one day but for now it is enough, it is enough.

There’s still too long shifts at the gallery. There’s still his too big body Hyunwoo doesn’t know what to do with. There’s still a hole inside him, where something used to be, something that spurred him forward until it fizzled out. But he’s learning, learning to fill the hole with new things, better things. Kihyun’s laugh and the broad strokes of his paintings, Hoseok’s soft smiles and strange insights; there’s charcoal dust on his fingers and he learns to love the pages again, seated under a window in Kihyun’s apartment. He learns to draw for himself and understands that it is enough. He maps Kihyun’s body with eager fingers and Kihyun’s mind with soft words and he lets him in, slowly, bit by bit untangling the skein of his thoughts.

The greys of his days leave place to soft touches of greens and yellows, intense reds and the darkest blues. Kihyun paints another king, the twin brother of the defeated conqueror. This one sits on a throne of white and gold, a crown of emeralds upon his brow. There’s a sword in his lap and melancholy in his eyes but he looks serene, at peace. Ready for a new war to win.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading pals it means a lot ;_;  
> As per use you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlanquetteAO3) and [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/Blanq), or get me a [coffee](https://ko-fi.com/blanquetteao3).


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